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Avoiding the “ruff”.

No matter how it is spelt, you want to avoid it whether you have a club or 13 cards in your hand. We cannot be much help here with the former but let’s see if a ruff can be avoided at the table.

 

1NT was 12-14. North transferred to spades and bid their second suit; South jumped to the spade game. West led 6, with East following. Plan the play.

When an opponent leads a suit in which you have all the high honours, they are either making a passive lead or are after a ruff because the lead is from a one or two card suit. When you and dummy have a combined 8 cards in that suit, you know that one opponent or the other will score a ruff on the third round of the suit if you actually survive without conceding a ruff earlier.

On the board above, you have only one initial problem and that is in the trump suit. You have to lose a trick to the A but otherwise your side-suits are excellent. The possibility of an imminent ruff has produced a second issue. Thus, the more trumps you can draw quickly, the less chance there is of conceding a ruff.

You are fortunate in that you can make your contract even if you lose two trump tricks. With such a “gappy” trump holding, you are likely to lose two trump tricks no matter how you play the suit. Your best chance of having just one loser is that one opponent has KQ doubleton, and to benefit from that, you do not want to take a finesse. Fortunately, that fits in with the plan of drawing two rounds of trumps as quickly as possible…laying down A and that line had an added advantage on the actual lay-out:

 

Leading a low spade from dummy would be a good play if East held KQ9x though would create three losers on the more common situation when East held KQx and West scored a ruff with their small doubleton. Laying down the A is also the big winner above. West can now only score two trump tricks because East holds the A, giving East the entry to give their partner a ruff. After playing A, a second spade goes to West’s Q. East signals for a heart to be played but the ruff is the third and last trick the defence gets.

After a low spade from dummy at trick 2, East can give their partner not just one ruff but two .. and that’s three trump losers and A.

There are many situations where you have to forgo a standard finesse to draw two rounds of trumps quickly and cut down the possibility of conceding a ruff. On the above deal, where you are prepared to lose two trump tricks but not three, there is no clear line to follow, of trying a finesse or leading low away from the ace. So, risk losing to a bad break like KQ9x in one hand and avoid going down to more normal 3-2 breaks, a line which also provides you with a life-line with some 4-1 breaks as well. A singleton K or Q is twice as common as a singleton 9.

Out of 12 declarers in 4, 7 failed, 4 after receiving a diamond lead. East would not be pleased at the other five tables when the A was played at trick 2.

Where is she?

Rightly or wrongly, you bid on after West’s annoying jump bid. Such double jumps should be banned…unless it is our side making them!

 West started off with A which felled East’s Q and on West’s K, East threw a nebulous 4 (With the 3 and 2 missing, this might be asking for a club switch (low encourage) or might not! You ruff and try a couple rounds of trumps with West throwing a diamond on the second round.

You need to make 11 tricks. You need to “find” that Q. If and when you play spades, both opponents follow to the first round.

Richard Solomon

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